TELECOM Digest Thu, 27 Apr 95 12:25:00 CDT Volume 15 : Issue 214 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Local Competition Epiphany (Donald E. Kimberlin) German Telekoms "KIT": Specs/Document Now Available (Werner J. Lilie) Re: The AT&T "Minimum Usage Charge" Rumor (Michael Ward) Re: Detect/Prevent Third-Party Calls (Steven White) Re: Detect/Prevent Third-Party Calls (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: New Country Code 380 For Ukraine (Clive D.W. Feather) USWorst / ISDN (Bill Halverson) IBM Twinaxial Cable Disposal (Shereef Moustafa) Re: NPA Black Holes (Mark Cuccia) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 708-329-0572 Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. *********************************************************************** * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent- * * ing views of the ITU. * *********************************************************************** Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For the past four days, full-page ads have appeared in the Charlotte, North Carolina {Observer}, telling of a coalition of companies that seek particular objectives in U.S. Federal legislation concerning local telephone competition. Those who remember "how it used to be" will find some of the statements no less than an astounding change from what AT&T once used to say to the world, in addition to noting AT&T's recognition of entities it would once have hoped to ignore and perhaps even hogtie to death. It certainly seems AT&T has discovered a new reality, and now has joined in to promote a new reality into local telephone business in the U.S. Here's the ad copy reproduced in ASCII as best I can do: Bell Monopolies are the problem. Real competition is the only answer. Congress will soon be considering legislation to rewrite the laws that will govern telecommunications policy well into the 21st century. If that rewrite is to help the average American, we believe a few key principles must guide this work. * Monopolies and a free market economy don't mix. * Monopolies stifle entrepreneurship and innovation, and keep prices high. * Monopolies never, ever give up their power voluntarily. Therefore, any legislation must start with breaking up the entrenched local Bell monopolies. The Bell companies are classic monopolies. The control about 99 percent of local service in their territories. Except for the monopoly Bells, everyone agrees that these monopolies must FIRST disappear -- the debate is about when, how and under what conditions. Real local competition will exist only when Bell monopolies meet clear tests that competitive choices actually exist. And when experts have the power to enforce those tests to preserve free markets. We want this industry to be deregulated as rapidly as possible. But it is essential to do it right. That means, first break up the local monopolies; then deregulate all markets. We know that competition in long distance is a dazzling success for America, driving down prices almost 70 percent in 11 years while providing new and innovative technological advances. It's time to bring those same competitive benefits to consumers of local phone service. DE-MONOPOLIZE, then DE-REGULATE You can affect this legislation. If you want to learn more about how to have real competition replace the local Bell monopolies... Call 1-800-4COMPETE The Competitive Long Distance Coalition (signed with logos of Comptel, AT&T, LDDS/Worldcom, MCI, Sprint, TRA and ACTA> (c) CLD Coalition, Inc. ... It's happening! Even the Greatest Telecom Show on Earth is encouraging interlopers into the local markets.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The important thing is *do it right*. Proceed very carefully, to avoid the problems we had in the early days of long distance deregulation. Conditions are certainly changing quickly now; the rush for complete deregulation and competition is well underway. It seems amazing that time has gone by as quickly as it has since the early 1980's when this Digest first began publication and there was almost no competition at all. Yes, its been eleven years since AT&T and the local Bell Companies went their separate ways ... amazing. PAT] ------------------------------ Hi ! The German "Telekom" has been operating a CEPT-based service named "BTX" for quite a while now. BTX is (was?) comparable to the well-known French system "Minitel" or maybe even the US-based service "Prodigy". BTX turned out to be a major disappointment: costly, not enough subscribers, too expensive and loaded with sleaze & smut (hot chat, and all that). However, since the former Bundespost/Deutsche Telekom (nowadays just "Telekom") turned over the marketing to a small company ("1&1") and renamed the service to "DATEX-J" (DATa EXchange - Jedermann [anybody/everybody]) it has been growing steadily. In the last couple of years the service has grown from around 200-thousand to an amazing 700 000 and is supposed to hit 1 million by the end of this year (keep in mind that this is a German-only service). Currently the system is undergoing a major overhaul: 14.4 & 28.8 (+ ISDN) access instead of former 2.4, Internet-email gateway, a lot of new high-quality (for example: FIZ) services and a completely new graphical interface (which will ultimately replace the old character-based interface). This new interface is called "KIT" (Kernel for Intelligent Communication Terminals) and the Telekom is going to try to make it a standard (ITU, and all that). I like the idea of having important stuff like this available at ones fingertips, so I contacted the Person responsible for this at the Telekom (N.Braun, Thanks!) and obtained the necessary documents and his permission to put them on the Internet. All the KIT-stuff can be found on "ftp.uni-stuttgart.de" in the directory "/pub/doc/standards/misc/KIT" It contains the following: - CHKSUM MD5 checksum of "kit_doc.pdf" & "kit_doc.ps.gz" - README German ReadMe file containing negligible info - kit_doc.pdf KIT-documentation as Adobe PDF file [695K] - kit_doc.ps.gz KIT-documentation as gzipped Postscript file [691K] - new directory, containing: - KIT_DOC.README another German ReadMe file - kitspec.exe a "zipped" (.zip) Postscript file of the KIT-docum. [258K] The PDF (Portable Document Format) file-format is sort of an enhanced postscript, while enjoying all the features of postscript you can, in addition, search the text and the like. Your best choice for reading a .pdf file is the free "Acrobat Reader" from Adobe, its available for DOS, M$-Windoze, Mac and Unix (sorry, just for SunOS - no source available). You can download it from "ftp.adobe.com" and probably a lot of other sites. The following locations of the files on ftp.uni-stuttgart.de will give you a hint which directories to check on other servers. When ftp- ing the files from ftp.uni-stuttgart.de please keep the pathetic bandwidth of the European (and particularly German!) network in mind! On ftp.uni-stuttgart.de the Adobe Acrobat Reader can be found in the following directories: DOS, M$-Windoze, Mac: "pub/tex/fonts/postscript/adobe/Applications/Acrobat/" Unix (SunOS binary): "/pub/unix/text-processing/postscript/Acrobat/" Und Tschuess..... WL P.S.: All-German posting available in "de.comm.internet, de.comm.misc, fido.ger.btx, fido.ger.internet" niteowl@studbox.uni-stuttgart.de | Fon:+49-711-8177553 wjl@guug.de CI$ : 100142,2352 | Fax:+49-711-8177620 ------------------------------ lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) writes: > Here's what I've been able to piece together so far. It's accurate as > far as I know, but I have more inquiries pending and I'll pass along > anything else I find out. > 1) No minimum charges would apply to residential lines (as far as I can > determine right now). > 2) A minimum charge of $5/month/line will apply to all separately billed > business lines that have AT&T selected as their carrier. This will just > suddenly start appearing on bills shortly. Surprise! > 3) AT&T is suggesting that business customers aggregate their lines in > various ways to help avoid the charge (aggregated lines -- e.g. via Custom > Net or SBA, etc. apparently share a single $5 minimum between all lines). It is possible that AT&T does not want low volume customers. A similar issue has come up with regards to residential service. AT&T claims that 26% of its residential customers have monthly bills less than $3 and 44% less than $10. It costs AT&T between $0.35 and $0.85 to render a monthly bill. For residential service (I don't know about business service) LD carriers must pay ~$0.50 per subscriber per month to the Universal Service Fund regardless of the subscriber's calling volume. This goes a long way to explaining calling plans being volume sensitive. It also explains why some resellers are marketing that you do not pre-subscribe, but just dial thier 1-0-XXXX code. AT&T was further claiming that the price-cap plan did not permit them to set initial prices high enough to cover costs and then offer steeper discounts. I do not know how valid this claim is. The minimum monthly charge for business service probably is an outgrowth of the February (?) 1995 FCC decision to regulate AT&T commercial services in a more streamlined fashion, rather than keep under price-caps. ------------------------------ > I just had two AT&T long-distance calls charged to my number, and had to > call AT&T to have them removed -- AT&T isn't my long-distance provider. ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can prevent it from happening with a > slight bit of inconvenience to yourself, but it may be worth it. Find > out of your local telco offers 'billed number screening'. This is a Southern Bell in N.C. charges $10.25 for this change in service to disallow incoming third-party billing. I was recommended by AT&T to have this option put on my line after a couple of (not inexpensive) calls were charged from a Texas hotel room. Of course, AT&T withdrew the charges. However, I don't feel I should have to pay $10.25 for a crime preventive measure. A couple more fraudulent charges, and the phone company will have already "paid" the charge in manhours. How about requiring Ma Bell to reimburse AT&T for any future fraudulent charges? Seems to me they are bordering on being an accessory. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Ameritech (Illinois Bell) does not charge a fee for this service. You simply ask to be added to the data base. PAT] ------------------------------ alex@eagle.hd.HAC.COM (Alex Madarasz) wrote: > I just had two AT&T long-distance calls charged to my number, and had to > call AT&T to have them removed -- AT&T isn't my long-distance provider. > How / why is it possible for someone to have calls -- especially long- > distance calls -- charged to my number? Is there any way I can detect > this happening or prevent it in the future? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You can prevent it from happening with a > slight bit of inconvenience to yourself, but it may be worth it. Find > out of your local telco offers 'billed number screening'. This is a > database used in common by AT&T, Sprint, MCI and a couple other long- > distance carriers which prevents anything but direct dialed calls from > your actual telephone from being being to your account with the exception > of credit card calls. That is, calls made 'collect' to you will be turned > away as will attempts to bill 'third number' calls to you. The network > simply won't allow those calls. Now if you have reason occassionally to > call your number collect or place a call and bill it to your number, then > you too are going to be rejected, but this may be a minor issue considering > all the options available these days such as 800 numbers, calling cards > and other methods. PAT] Some local telco's offer third party billing restrict and collect restrict seperately. South Central Bell does so here in Louisiana, and there is NO charge for this service, neither one time nor recurring monthly. I cannot speak for servcies by any other local telcos in other states/provinces. I had a situation a few years ago when I had a third party charge back to my bill (via AT&T), and even though I was aware of collect restrict and third party restrict, I forgot to have them added to my account when I first got my telephone service. Also, SCBell does NOT just add the restrictions on your account by requesting them over the phone like they do with requests for new Custom Calling or 'Touchstar' features or even a 976 or 1-900 or N11 code blocking -- with these billed-back resrictions, SCBell will mail you a form which you must sign and mail back to Bell before they will put you number in the operator's database; I'm not exactly sure who OWNS this database, but the MAJOR long distance carriers AND the LOCAL TELCOS (InTRA-Lata TOPS operators) use the database for verification; NOT ALL LD Carriers will check this database - you could still get a third party charge via one of these private-payphone/Motel PBX private operators -- but Bell told me that they would adjust this off of my own bill and keep a reference of it for future problems with these *&@! private operators/PBX/Payphone companies. But, here in Louisiana, you CAN get your line free from MOST third party billing back withOUT having to give up COLLECT calls to you which you might want to accept in emergencies. Mark [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here it is just offered as one package. You can ask for restriction on any charges coming through on calls which were not direct-dialed or via calling card. As you point out, not all úÿ ------------------------------ > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you suppose one of these days as the > global community changes; new countries are formed and old ones go > out of existence that the international numbering scheme will get all > messed up the way USA area codes got messed up, out of sequence, etc? > Will we some day run out of country codes the way the USA ran out of > area codes and have to come up with some new numbering scheme for the > whole world? PAT] Hopefully not. After the breakup of the eastern block, things seem to have settled down in terms of new countries appearing. I compared my country codes list with my list of ISO recognised countries and territories. The shared uses of codes I found were: 1 Shared by 21 countries, of which 1 has a new code allocated 269 Shared by 2 countries: Comoros and Mayotte 33 Shared by 3 countries, of which 2 have had new codes allocated 39 Shared by 3 countries, of which 2 have had new codes allocated 41 Shared by 2 countries: Switzerland and Liechtenstein 42 Shared by 2 countries: Czech Republic and Slovakia 672 Shared by 5 territories under Australian control 7 Shared by 9 countries, of which 3 have had new codes allocated So there's a potential need for 31 new codes. But 68 are still spare: 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 292 293 294 295 382 383 384 388 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 830 831 832 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 851 854 857 858 859 881 882 883 884 885 887 888 889 970 978 979 990 991 992 993 996 997 998 999 and if the Czechs and the Slovaks want to split, ITU-T would almost certainly split code 42 into 10 codes, making another 8 spare. So I think we're safe for the while. Oops, almost forgot. Apart from the 31 cases I listed before, there are eight territories with no international code that I know of: Bouvet Island [Norway] East Timor French Southern Territories Pitcairn Island South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands [UK Atl] Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands [Norway] United States Minor Outlying Islands Western Sahara Clive D.W. Feather clive@stdc.demon.co.uk [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are referring to the United States Trust Territory in the South Pacific Ocean as the 'minor outlying islands' you mention above, I think some of those have gone into 'area code' 808 which serves Hawaii and Midway Island. Also, I think the 'country code' for Guam is going to become an 'area code' in the near future, still serving Guam and perhaps nearby places. PAT] ------------------------------ pp001983@interramp.com (John Sullivan) wrote: > You're one of the fortunate few, Michael. US West has decided to > concentrate its ISDN efforts on Washington state since their network > infrastructure is in better shape there and they think there will be a > larger customer base (e.g. Microsoft). They aren't pulling out of other > states entirely, but they are trying to get out of remotely providing > ISDN service and providing service only from "disclosed" offices which > would mean primarily existing digital offices. US West claims that > availability in Washington will be about 96 percent. They hope to use > Washington as a "testbed" for ISDN. Then, once they figure out how to > sell it, they'll take what they've learned and apply it in other states. > If I were a potential ISDN customer in one of those states, however, I > wouldn't hold my breath. Ah HA! This begins to explain what I heard in Minneapolis last week: US West declined to bid on a 7,500 line metropolitan voice system -- and when the customer had the audacity to buy a (gasp) PBX and request their own prefix ... well suffice it to say the poor TCM that made that decision now finds himself looking at a situation where US West testers fail to show up for scheduled tests, the T1 network he is leasing gives him fits, and ... on and on ... Moreover, several other corporate accounts (Cargill was mentioned) have their own horror stories about USWest. Bill Halverson Pacific Bell Sent 16:20:00 PDT on 04/25/95 PH 415 542 6564 wjhalv1@pacbell.com FAX 415 542 6424 "The views of the author are not those of his employer ... yet." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Care to share more of those 'horror stories' from Cargill and others? Interested readers want to know more. PAT] ------------------------------ Is anyone familiar with recyclers or resellers of IBM Twinax cable? I need to dispose of quite a bit and understand that there may be parties interested in getting this stuff for copper value or emergency cable. Thanks ... please reply to rosettag@ix.netcom.com :) ------------------------------ I heard this same story too, on Paul Harvey News yesterday on ABC Radio about those who are not able to dial out to 'NNX' type NPA's. MOST telcos have done everything they are supposed to in reprogramming their switches -- some small independents MIGHT have been late in doing so. Privately owned payphones (COCOTS) can also be blamed for not programming their phones, and most of us will blame A LOT of problems on COCOTS, who deserve all the blame they get (along with their sister AOS' (I'd like to spell AOS a little bit different). But even Bell can be blamed at times. Here in Louisiana, all of our Step by Step offices have been converted to ESS (or DIGITAL ESS), and there are probably a few #5 Crossbars (also common control); 557 is the special office prefix in the five-state SCBell area used to call Business Office, Repair, etc. When SCBell introduced it around 1986 or 87, it was listed as 1 + 557- XXXX; the 1+ was necessary in Stepper offices but redundant in CommonControl offices (#5XB, ESS, Digital); SCBell dropped the 1+ listing on 557 about two or three years ago; even when it was listed, you could still call 557 without the 1+ in common control offices; You can STILL use a 1 + 557 but it is NOT required; Actually whenever Bellcore assigns 557 as an Area Code, 1 + 557 for SCBell will become confusing; If MS, AL, TN, KY have ANY step offices in SCBell territory (I don't know for sure), they might change the dialing to 1 + HOME NPA + 557 or they might instruct callers to use an 800 (or 888) number. Recently I requested some code restrictions on my home phone. I have had NPA 900 and the 976 local office code restricted for several years. NOW, SCBell opened up some previously unused N11 codes for 'Information Delivery' services -- 211 is for the {Times Picayunne} newspaper's 'info' line (Tone phone required, dial 211 hear a preamble stating that it is 50 cents/call and if you don't want to be charged hang up now -- use the four digit menu options to request Soap updates, sports scores, you know the like); 311 is for an alternate private ambulance service (several ambulance companies bid for this code), 511 unused, 711 presently unused; 611 is NOT repair in La., 811 is NOT business office in La. -- these two unused. I requested free restriction on access to 211 as well as changing my local service to a more Metro-area dialing plan (former toll calls within 40 miles are local or greatly discounted toll -- and you don't have to dial 1 + 504 + -- you just have to dial seven digits. Well, when my 211 became blocked and my Metro dial plan went into effect, I found that whoever programmed my line cut out access to 557 SCBell company numbers. I could NOT get thru unless I dialed 1 + 557; I also could not do 0 + 504 + 557 nor 1 + 504 + 557. Knowing that NNX form NPA's are being used now, I called Repair (!+557 etc) and complained; A supervisor said "I don't see any problem with you dialing 1 + 557; if and when a 557 area code is assigned, you should take that up with your LD company" which I responded NO that it was THEIR problem to which she said "Oh well, if and when 557 becomes a new area code, as far as YOUR line goes, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." The Bell System planned YEARS ago (as early as 1959 or 60) that one day there would be N0X/N1X central office codes and NNX Area Codes; For the MOST part, Telco has done what they were supposed to -- PBX's, some independent telcos, and DAMNABLE PRIVATE PAYPHONES/AOS companies are to blame; but telco in some instances DOES deserve a little blame - WE HAVE COME TO 'THAT' BRIDGE BUT A TOLL-TAKER of DRAWBRIDGE TENDOR REFUSES TO CO-OPERATE!!! Oh by the way -- I kept harping on different supervisors -- my line at home is all straightened out now -- except I can't dial 0 + 411 anymore for Local Directory billed Calling Card/3d Party (31 cents here in La.) but so what - If a call to Directory billed like that is needed from my line at home, I can dial 0 + 504-555-1212; same 31 cents billing. Mark ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V15 #214 ****************************